


Tin Can Telephone

by ProblematicPines



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Could be read as general, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mostly Fluff, Older Dipper Pines, Older Mabel Pines, Timeskip, Younger Dipper Pines, Younger Mabel Pines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 05:56:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17543996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblematicPines/pseuds/ProblematicPines
Summary: Despite their differences, the Pines Twins remained attached to each other’s sides, and, like most siblings of their calibre, developed unique quirks that only they could share.One such of these quirks was the incorporation of a Tin Can Telephone.





	Tin Can Telephone

Siblings can be pretty close. Whether this be due to similar interests or a similar age range or merely living in the same house as one another, there’s no denying that the vast majority of siblings form some kind of bond in early childhood that solidifies their relationship later in life. Some are maddened by their siblings due to lack of common interests or constant annoyances, though there are some exceptions in which said siblings are made for each other.

Especially siblings born at the same time, whether this be twins or triplets or quadruplets or anything more.

This was the case for young Mason and Mabel Pines.

From the day they were born they were inseparable. They were born as identical twins, with Mason having a curious birthmark on his forehead in the shape of a star constellation known as the Big Dipper.  
These two got along like a house on fire - if that house fire was one formed from exploding rainbows.

The Pines twins were pretty much the other’s lifeline: neither went anywhere without the other. They were determined to stay together at all times - it was like they were the same person. (Some theorize that twins actually are the same person genetically divided into two but shhh - that’s besides the point).  
They would play together, watch TV together, bathe together - they even shared the potty together when they were much too young to fully grasp social norms (their mother immortalized such events in a scrapbook, just to whip it out years later and give said twins second-hand embarrassment at their insatiable co-dependency on one another).

Their parents were overjoyed at seeing their beloved children getting along so well, and they had been the talk of the town for quite some time: twins were pretty rare in Piedmont, California, and seeing siblings getting along so well was quite a rarity.

Over time, the twins gradually gained their own separate interests.

Mabel, the girl, was obsessed with all things sparkly and radiant, and was quite a talented artist at her age. Scrawling crude pictures of rainbow splotches on paper that she said were “Yoonecohns” and “Mermays” earned her a reputation of being an imaginative and eccentric child that brought a smile to the faces of all who met her.

Mason, the boy (who soon went by the alias “Dipper” to coincide with his birthmark), was more of the studious type: he had an affinity for learning and bettering his knowledge about the world around him. Even when he and his twin sister were only just starting Kindergarten, he had excelled to the reading level of a second-grader in the matter of time it had taken the other children to read through “The Three Little Pigs”.

Despite their differences, the Pines Twins remained attached to each other’s sides, and, like most siblings of their calibre, developed unique quirks that only they could share.

One such of these quirks was the incorporation of a Tin Can Telephone.

As the twins grew older, their parents decided that it would have been better for them to have their own separate bedrooms (for previously they had been sharing one since the day they had been brought home from the hospital as squealing newborns). So, they placed the twins in bedrooms directly beside one another. They were saddened about the split at first, as they had grown accustomed to talking to one another at night until they were too sleepy to stay awake much longer.

So, Dipper, being a brainbox for a child of his age, came up with an idea.

Their bedrooms were right next to each other, and their beds were even placed against the wall separating them. Dipper ended up constructing a makeshift telephone for them to talk through during the evening, so that they could get used to the split. He made it out of two empty soup tins and a very long piece of string. One can was in Mabel’s bedroom, and the other was in Dipper’s; the string was stretched along the hall between the two bedrooms.

Through this the twins would talk to each other about anything and everything, staying up for long after their bedtimes to make sure the other was comfortable enough to fall asleep. As soon as the other end of the string went slack, the other knew that they had succeeded in comforting the other into sleeping soundly, and would fall asleep themselves.

Dipper and Mabel spoke through their tin can telephone for years afterwards. Not every night, but most. Not every night turned into sparse nights, until not at all.

They had grown older, and they had (for the most part) outgrown childish and trivial things. Well, at least Dipper had (at least he thought he had, he was still only twelve and had plenty of time to enjoy his youth while it lasted). Mabel was still an eight-year-old trapped in a twelve-year-old’s body, and Dipper had assumed it would have stayed that way until they reached a more mature age.

The tin can telephone, having not served any purpose for at least a year, was scooped up and placed in Dipper’s closet. He hadn’t the heart to throw it out, but he also didn’t want to leave it sprawled out in the hall as a potential hazard.

\--

Returning home from an...unexpectedly terrifying summer vacation in a town called Gravity Falls with their Grunkle Stan Pines, the Pines Twins had no idea how to perceive the world around them anymore.

Prior to that summer, their lives had been so simple and straightforward: enjoy being kids, graduate high school, get jobs, get partners, settle down, have kids. That’s what they expected their lives to turn out like.  
And yet, after seeing the terrors and the wonders and the mysteries of that strange little backwoods town in Roadkill County, Oregon (from reality-warping dream demons from alternate dimensions to universally-destructive portals containing long-lost twin brothers to conspiracy theories that went far beyond simple government cover-ups), Dipper and Mabel had never been more uncertain of their futures in their lives.

They’d thought their fates had been set in stone: blend into the crowd and just live life. But after seeing all the possibilities the world had in store for them that they hadn’t even thought existed in their wildest dreams, neither could really wrap their heads around what they were going to do. There was so much they could do, but there was so little time to be able to enjoy and experience it all.

And they had nobody to talk to apart from each other now that they were back home in Piedmont, but they also had no idea how to go about that either.

Which was when Dipper had another one of his great ideas.

Their first night back home in their separate bedrooms after returning to California, Dipper and Mabel used the Tin Can Telephone from their childhood for the first time in what felt like forever. They spent the whole night talking away into the dusty old cans, whispering about how they simply needed to go back to Gravity Falls and relive it all over again.

They spoke about how much they’d loved it there, how much they’d been scared they’d never ever return home again, when in reality, they’d never left. Piedmont may have been where they’d grown up, but Gravity Falls was their home.

They knew that deep in their hearts that it was true - Gravity Falls was a part of them now, and they had no hesitations about running back at the first opportunity.

\--

Now, the twins were even older than they were back then.

The tin can telephone had long since been discarded: they had no use of it now, now that they were sharing a room again. They’d used it to talk to each other about their innermost secrets through the density of the wall that separated them from one another, when society deemed them too old to be sharing a bedroom.

But now, as they lay curled up under the warm sheets of their shared bed in their shared apartment, talking to one another about what they were going to do tomorrow in the little backwoods town they called home, both of them were thankful for the tin can telephone.

It really goes to show how siblings can be pretty close.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, look at me - finally writing something happy for once lmao
> 
> This was a nice break from my dark Fics. Hopefully this will become a regular thing if you guys don't like reading my more morbid stuff.
> 
> So this is an idea that has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time now. At least a month or two. I've been debating whether to write it about Dipper and Mabel or Stan and Ford (as kids), and I ended up settling on the former. I think it came out pretty great, and I hope you guys think so too!
> 
> Edit: Because I'm a dumbass bitch, I referred to Dipper as "Tyrone" throughout this instead of "Mason". I've edited his name now, but I'm still mad at myself for letting something so trivial slip through my proof-reading.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated!


End file.
